The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
All publications herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
It has become easier and more pervasive for unauthorized users to illegally download and share files containing material that is subject to intellectual property protection, such as music and video files subject to copyright protection and packaging art and advertisements subject to trademark protection. Since much of the value of these protected works lie in the content owner's ability to sell and license these works to only authorized users, detection of unlicensed files containing such protected materials is essential to effectively protecting a corporation's intellectual property.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,925,044 to Metois et al., US2012/0002880 to Lipson and U.S. Pat. No. 8,107,739 to Seeber each teach computer systems that analyze two-dimensional images in order to determine whether those two-dimensional images violate intellectual property rights, such as copyright and trademark infringements. Metois, Lipson, and Seeber utilize databases that store known protected image templates and candidate fingerprints and compare those fingerprints to the two dimensional images in order to determine the likelihood that a suspect image contains protected subject matter. However, Metois, Lipson, and Seeber only teach an analysis of pre-constructed images and do not analyze metadata statistics that track the actual creation or use of the infringing subject matter.
US2011/0276449 to Funderburk et al. and US2012/0011105 to Brock also teach systems and methods of reviewing electronic documents to determine whether those electronic documents infringe a party's intellectual property rights, and also analyze metadata track down specific infringement actions or users that violate a content owner's usage rules. However, none of the cited art teach any systems or methods to analyze anything but a two-dimensional image.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,023,695 to Rhodes teaches a system that analyzes electronic video and audio files and pattern-matches these files against known, protected videos and audio segments in order to determine if the given video or audio file violates a party's intellectual property. However, all of the cited art only analyzes two-dimensional images and audio or video files. Infringers infringe the intellectual property rights of many products that are neither two-dimensional images nor audio/video files.
None of the above references teach a system or method to analyze a three-dimensional object to determine whether that object violates protected subject matter. Thus, there is still a need for systems and methods of analyzing three-dimensional objects to determine whether that object contains protected subject matter.